The Boox Picco Is a Contender for My New Favorite Tiny E-Reader

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AirPods Pro for scale; no, this isn't an audiobook player. Credit: Joel Cunningham

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Forget the Kindle Colorsoft—the release of the Xteink X4 last fall felt like the first truly interesting thing to happen to e-readers in years. A cheap, slightly clunky Chinese device with a 4.3-inch screen, its perfectly pocketable size (and a smart marketing gimmick—"You can attach it to the back of your phone with a magnet! Never mind that that isn't really a practical or sensible way to read!") quickly attracted an online cult following of tinkerers.

Xteink has since translated its viral social media success into mainstream awareness (including coverage in The New York Times), quickly releasing a flurry of new devices, including the Xteink X4 Pro, which brought familiar features like a front light and touchscreen into the mix. And the competition has definitely taken notice.

Boox, another Chinese company—albeit one that has been around for more than a decade—previously experienced a similar trajectory with the Palma, its own weirdly shaped e-reader. First released in 2023, that phone-shaped device appealed to readers who wanted something that was easier to carry than a full-sized Kindle and didn't tie them to the Amazon ecosystem. Yet even as the company prepares for the launch of the Palma 3 this fall, it's clearly not willing to let Xteink eat its lunch—hence the release of its own itty-bitty e-reader, the 3.97-inch Boox Picco.

Why all tiny e-readers are so similar

First revealed in a surprise announcement back in July, the Picco is clearly modeled on Xteink's success—and with good reason, considering in many ways, the devices are identical by necessity. All e-reader screens are made by the same company, E-Ink, which means that all of these micro-readers—the Xteink X4, the X3, the X4 Pro, and, yes, the Picco—use the same screen with the same 480x800 resolution. They also run on similar, simple ESP32 processors (though there's a bit more variation between models there) and make similar trade-offs, like abandoning onboard storage in favor of a microSD card slot. Like the X4 Pro, the Picco includes a temperature-adjustable front light and a touchscreen for navigation.

Firmware isn't even really a differentiating factor: Part of the reason for Xteink's early success was the fact that its simplicity made it easy to hack. No sooner had it found a following than a group of fans developed a custom firmware, called CrossPoint, that corrects most of the issues with Xteink's undeniably underbaked native operating system—there's even a website that makes flashing your reader with CrossPoint a matter of a single click. Early on, there was uncertainty about whether the Picco would run on Android like Boox's other devices, including the Palma. But no: Not only is Boox's device not a full-fledged Android device—it actually runs on a modified version of CrossPoint itself. Wild.

So, the components and firmware are darn similar on paper. How does the Boox Picco measure up in real life? Boox sent me a pre-release unit to test out, and after a day of messing around with it, I can report that it's pretty great. Do I like it more than the X4 Pro, its closest competitor in terms of features? I haven't quite decided.

My initial thoughts about the Boox Picco

Whatever their interior similarities, the Picco and the X4 Pro are pretty different at a glance. The Picco initially looks and feels much more refined, with a two-toned back panel and an aluminum frame and buttons that recall the iPhone 5, of all things. With a 3.97-inch display, it's slightly larger than the 3.7-inch Xteink X3 but smaller than the 4.3-inch X4 and X4 Pro. Its 5.5mm thickness also sits between those devices (the X3 is 5.1mm thick, and the X4 Pro, 5.95mm). These differences are mostly inconsequential, though: Depending on your settings, all will display about the same number of words onscreen at the same time, and all will disappear easily into any pocket.

Personally, I'm still trying to decide if I like the feel and form factor of the Picco—its straighter edges don't sit in my hand quite as comfortably as the Xteink devices, and I prefer the button placement on the X3 and X4 Pro that places forward and back page turn buttons on opposite sides of the device to the Picco's single right-side rocker button, which is small enough that I occasionally click to go back a page when I mean to go forward.

One unique touch: A switch on the left-hand side offers manual control over the front light (also adjustable in the on-screen menus), though you can also map it to turn on dark mode. It's tough to directly compare the front lights between the devices, as the firmware I'm running on the X4 Pro (CrossInk) overrides the native settings to allow more granularity in the brightness settings, but in terms of uniformity of the lighting and the cool/warm color balance, the devices seem identical.

The Picco is also a lot lighter than the X4 Pro—58g versus 72g. It feels almost too light to me. Most of the weight difference is likely down to the fact that the Picco lacks the X4 Pro's internal magnets; the Boox device won't be able to snap into a magnetic case or clip to the back of your phone (though, again, I question why you'd want to do that), but whatever the reason, the lighter build makes the Picco feel slightly insubstantial to me.

Yes, the Boox Picco has USB-C

Judging by the ongoing turmoil in the r/xteink subreddit, the biggest differentiating factor for many users will be the fact that the Picco charges and transfers files via a standard USB-C port, a feature Xteink has since dropped from all of its devices in favor of magnetic pogo pins, which require a separate cable or an adapter. Considering their battery life is measured in weeks even with daily reading, this isn't a big deal to me, but lots of people really care about it. Opting for USB-C was definitely a good call on Boox's end.

The Picco has better native firmware—but does that matter?

While the X4 Pro can easily be flashed to run CrossPoint, it currently ships with Xteink's own operating system, which is still a bit of a work in progress. Out of the box, the Picco is immediately much more usable, owing both to Boox's experience at building devices for a global market and to the fact that it's just a variant on CrossPoint, which most everyone who has used one of these wee readers already loves.

There are limited options to customize things to your liking, including remapping the buttons to trigger different actions with a short or long press (like choosing to jump to the next chapter rather than the next page). You can also remap the touchscreen, though the options are limited to changing where to tap to change pages or open the in-book settings menu.

In terms of performance, the Picco feels just as fast as an X4 Pro running CrossInk, though the Pro has an ostensibly speedier ESP32-S3 processor (Boox hasn't specified exactly what processor the Picco uses). The Picco is generally faster when paging through a book quickly, suffering none of the momentary pauses for "indexing" that are common when reading on any Xteink device. It also seems to process and display cover art and embedded images much more quickly, despite the apparent lack of processing power.

It's not yet clear how much it will matter that the Picco has nicer firmware, however. Given it uses the same basic processor as the Xteink line (though one that is a bit less powerful than that in the X4 Pro, which has dual cores and 8MB of onboard RAM), it's very likely the Picco will also be flashable with custom software. In theory, this will mean that you will soon be able to pick and choose your own features from any number of options readily available online.

How to buy the Boox Picco

Whether you're interested in comparing the Picco to your Xteink device or are looking to buy your first tiny e-reader, you'll have to be patient: The Picco is not yet available for pre-order, directly from Boox or anywhere else. Rumors suggest a November release, though Boox has yet to provide a date. In the meantime, you can pick up the X4 Pro on Amazon. Whichever you choose, you'll be paying the same: Both devices come in at $99, around $50 less than the entry-level Kindle.